As society becomes increasingly reliant upon technology, mechanical and electromechanical systems, such as aircraft, automobiles, weapons systems and power systems, are called upon to perform an ever increasing number of functions. One downside to this is that, in some situations, a failure of a single component in the system may cause a catastrophic failure of the entire system possibly resulting in the loss of millions of dollars and hundreds of lives. In an attempt to reduce the probability of a catastrophic systems failure, critical systems are required to satisfy predetermine operating tolerances before they may be used. As such, key components within these critical systems, i.e. components whose failure may cause a catastrophic system failure such as screws and/or gages, must also satisfy operating tolerances. If a component fails to satisfy these required design tolerances and/or performance specifications a degradation of system performance and/or a total system failure may occur.
One method of inspecting the physical characteristics of a component, such as the external threads of a screw, employs an attribute inspection approach that measures the physical characteristic of the component via a contact measurement technique. Unfortunately, these contact measurement techniques are time consuming and inaccurate, thus permitting non-conforming components to pass inspection. In response to the need for faster and more accurate component measurements, inspection systems that do not employ contact measurement techniques are being developed. One type of inspection system employs a vision inspection approach which visually captures an image of either an actual component or a silhouette of the component and determines the physical characteristics of the component from this image. However, in order to visually capture the image of a component, the component is disposed in a controlled manner using a component positioning device which is typically comprised of two rods or arbors, one of which may be spring loaded to hold the component in place by applying tension or pressure to the component.
Unfortunately, however, current component positioning devices have a plurality of disadvantages. First, these component positioning devices can only be used with components that have a straight geometry and as such, cannot be used with components that have bends or multiple branches, such as an elbow joint. Second, current designs of the component mount make it difficult to quickly center the component in between the mounting arbors.
Thus, there is a need for a component positioning device that can be used in an inspection system with a variety of components and that allows a component to be accurately and rapidly disposed for inspection.